


Make It Last

by danithemani



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Age Difference, Aging, Gentleness, Growing Old Together, M/M, Male Slash, Married Couple, Morrowind, Old Married Couple, Older Man/Younger Man, Other, Sad with a Happy Ending, Slash, Sweet, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, after the events of Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 09:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14161641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danithemani/pseuds/danithemani
Summary: Stenvar is getting older, and Danier can deny it no longer.





	Make It Last

 "I got that salmon you wanted. Damn barkeep charged me double so I took off with his coin purse. That damned fetcher. Simply wretched. Makes me miss Riften," I said, sitting next to my husband on our sofa.

"You used to be the Guildmaster, Dani. Of course, you got better prices," Stenvar replied.

"Well, maybe I should get back into Guild business again."

"You should just be nicer to Sadri."

"I would if he would keep his big blue nose out of our business."

"Don't worry about it, love. People's talk has never bothered you before."

It really was none of their damned business. We got a few raised eyebrows in Skyrim, but the sight of two outlanders, neither a Dunmer, of mixed race coming to Morrowind seemed absurd to these people. Of course, things like this were worse in rural areas. Back in Falkreath it was hard to even buy lumber from the local mill, and in the marshes of Deshaan it wasn't much different. It was nice to be in an area where my religion was accepted and I could openly practice, and Stenvar loved the warmer weather. It was easier to hone my alchemy talents in the well-forested region where we lived, and it was close enough to Mournhold where my children could experience a variety of cultures. 

But people loved to talk. About the snotty Altmer and his old Nord husband. About how nasty it must be, to lay with a man like that. How it must have made my ancestor's blood boil to see me dote over a human that way. They grumbled over Stenvar's gruffness, and wondered among themselves about why I even bothered with him, the s'wit. These people would never understand what we had been through. 

"Well, I will worry about it. I could buy and sell his stupid little cornerclub in the blink of an eye," I continued, "and I might too, give me something to do now."

"You could spend more time at home with me," he replied quietly. His voice was still and soft and carried a heaviness I rarely felt with him. "I'm not getting any younger, you know," he added, eyes on the table.

"Oh Stenvar, don't be like that. You can still smash heads with the best of them."

"Then why do you go off and have adventures with that Sovarth boy?"

"Because he's my apprentice. How else is he going to learn Conjuration if he doesn't get any field work?"

"Fieldwork. I remember when you took me out to 'study' and the last thing anybody learned was a damned spell."

"What exactly are you implying, Stenvar?"

"A young, eager-to-please apprentice is ready to do whatever you want in the name of 'the mysteries of Aetherius'" he waved his hands mockingly and rolled his eyes. I was getting tired of this.

Sovarth, of all people. A Dark Elf teenager that indentured himself to me when we moved to Morrowind. I joked to Stenvar that soon I would be turning in to old Neloth soon. Sovarth reminded me of Erik from my days in Skyrim. He was young and sweet and wiry, with a thick accent that endeared himself to me as soon as we met. Yes, he was young and sweet and eager-to-please, but all of those things only served as a deterrent. I had always liked my men, well, men and not Mer, for starters. Stenvar was strong and muscular with legs like tree trunks and arms that could hold me for days. Sovarth was, well he was just a Dunmer boy. And he was certainly not my husband.

"So are you trying to imply that my career is useless or that I am unfaithful? There are few things in this life I am utterly devoted to, Stenvar, and you happen to be insulting a great many of them," I replied curtly.

His eyes quieted again. I knew he didn't really mean what he was trying to say. Something must be going on.

"Do you think I've gone soft, Dani?"

"Well you have to sometimes, Stenny, or I wouldn't be able to leave the house," I answered, putting my head on his chest and giving his thigh a squeeze.

"You know what I mean," he replied and batted my hand away.

I did know what he meant. I looked into my husband's face and for the first time, saw what he meant.

His full lips were surrounded by smile lines that had grown since we met. It had been almost twenty years now. His green eyes, now softened by time, were in a sea of crevices. His cheeks didn't seem to have the same rosy glow I remembered from the day we married. His beard was scraggly and dry, despite his best efforts to keep it otherwise. Even the stubble that had grown from the last time he shaved his head was whiter than I was used to.

"That's what I was worried about. You look so young, Dani, and don't think I haven't noticed. It looks like you live your life behind a piece of glass, love. You haven't changed a bit. I look like I could shatter any day now."

I looked at him again. Even the hair on his chest was going grey. Stenvar quit his tough life as a mercenary when we married, and retired, as much as a Nord can, when we moved to Morrowind. As much as he thought he would enjoy drinking away my alchemy money, it seemed that an idle life had taken the wind out of his sails. Our children were grown and back in Skyrim for their own adventures. And now that I had Sovarth, he was left to his own thoughts. I knew now what was wrong. At the end of their life, a Nord dreams only of Sovangarde.

"You're beautiful, Stenvar." I brushed my fingertips over his hollowing cheeks. Even his skin was growing rough with age. I managed to hold back my tears, but my face showed it all the same.

It was true. My husband was as beautiful as the day I met him. I put my hands on his chest. I knew that the muscles underneath my fingertips had grown weaker with time, but I knew they were still strong enough to hold me like he used to. The light in his eyes hadn't dimmed, only softened. His lips were just as warm and inviting, even if they were crinkled at the edges. He was my husband. And nothing will ever change that.

"Stenvar," I said, "you're beautiful to me."

"You've always said that to me. You're the only person who ever told me that, besides ma," he answered, looking down at my hands on his chest. "I don't see how you said it then, and I for damn sure don't see it now."

He moved one of his hands from his side and placed it in the small of my back. I felt the pressure that was building in him subside as his fingers tickled across my skin. He still had the same callouses that he had earned from a battleax all those years ago, tempered now to the nimble hands of a jeweler. It was something of a hobby for him now, to use the ore that I brought back from my adventures to make presents for our girls and for me. I wrapped my arms around his waist and pushed him farther into the couch, making myself comfortable Tempered, that's what my husband was. He had gone through the fire with me, through a civil war that ripped across his homeland, followed me in and out of Oblivion just to find out who I was, and the biggest challenge a Dragonborn could ever face - raising two beautiful, intelligent girls. I knew what he had shaped Lucia and Sofie just as much as I had, and now they were grown, forging ahead their own lives and families.

"My big bear," I mumbled into him, curling as far into his lap as I could. I wanted to cry. I knew that he was right, that he was getting older and that it showing. I was lucky that his mind was still there. But his body was weakening in front of my eyes. His bones cracked with his steps, and he shuffled across the stone floor instead of a clamoring stomp like he used to. 

"You don't have to worry, you know," I said, looking up at him.

"Why's that?" he asked, his voice barely steady.

"Because, I'll just make you a thrall. Dress you up in mage robes. Maybe you'll finally do the dishes."

"Great," he started to laugh, "all these years putting up with you and I don't even get to go to Sovangarde."

"Just you, me, and Sanguine, handsome," I replied.

He ran his fingers through my hair and I felt his heartbeat. Stenvar had given me a life I never thought I could have - one where I felt safe. These were his last years on Nirn with me, but I would make them last. It was the least I could do to a man that gave me what the gods never could.

**Author's Note:**

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